Last One…
Mom and I at the African American Museum
Ok, last non-sailing post under the sailing category (for now)…
Above is our visit to the historic opening week of the African American museum. It was a madhouse, but history made…
Below is one of the historic ships in the Baltimore inner harbor, the Constellation. They also had one of the ships that survived Pearl Harbor as well as a WWII submarine. The sub reminded me that all my work in tight spaces below decks on my ship is comparatively easy.
The Civil War Era Warship Constellation
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
District of Columbia
Sunday Afternoon on the National Mall
Not really about sailing at all. Visited DC again with Mom and Scott. Went to the brand new Smithsonian African American museum, Air and Space museum, White House and Capitol. Lots of walking, traffic, bad bus tours, and dealing with people. Typical DC visit.
Are the Obamas Home?
The Capitol
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Family Visit
Mom Gets the Admiral’s Tour!
Haven’t posted for a while because of our big navigation upgrade project followed by my mom and stepfather visiting for a week. The navigation electronics install are much more time consuming that I estimated but I’ve made great progress, having installed the new display and wiring (photos later), and had the new radar scanner, AIS antenna and stern light installed and wired up.
As for the week-long visit, it started from my stepfather Scott, who was stationed at West Point in the late 1960s, and who wanted to visit one more time as a bucket list activity. And so he and my mom flew into New York City where we picked them up and headed up to West Point.
Million Dollar View at THE West Point of the Hudson
It was a very interesting tour. Lots of history. West Point was a key control point in the Revolutionary War, and only later did they decide to build the Military Academy here. The pic above is called the “million dollar view” due to the beauty of the place, and is actually located just above the west point of the Hudson River, after which the Military Academy is named. The academy itself is huge, we only saw a small part of it on the tour. Scott and I were able to get our temporary IDs to visit his old barracks, which he said looked the same almost 50 years later. He got to walk around and take lots of photos, and also talk to a lot of old guys in Highland Falls (town outside West Point) who knew all the same people he did from half a century ago. This was a great visit for everyone.
One of the Stained Glass Sections of the Chapel
Progress!
Rigging Up the Hauling Bridle
How do you know if you’re making progress? You spend a day or two trying to accomplish frustrating and stressful activities, and in the end you feel really burnt out and defeated but in fact you have learned new and valuable lessons.
That’s what we’ve been doing for the last couple of days. Here’s the story: We bought a new 9.9hp Yamaha outboard engine for our dingy. This thing is heavy, around 90 pounds. You can’t just carry it around under your arm (at least I can’t) and throw it up on it’s mount on the back of the boat. So what we did was wheel it in a cart from our car to the boat on the dock. To get it on the boat you normally use a lift, but we couldn’t use that to get it off the dock unless we turned the boat around and had the stern (back end) of the boat over the dock.
So… We spent two or so hours trying to back into our slip and could never get aligned right after probably a dozen tries. We’ve done this before on other boats but the Good Karma is special and we could not figure out the technique. In our defense, there was also quite a bit of wind which always adds to the difficulty of docking. We finally just docked in a position, bow in, but in a location where we could lift the outboard motor off the dock.
Then we had the challenge of figuring out a motor harness that really wasn’t made for the motor we have. Then we figured out how our lift works, but has a lot of tricks that had us in precarious positions several times. Fortunately, all our mountaineering experience with ropes and hauling systems paid off and not only did we not drop the engine, we actually got it mounted correctly. It was way, way harder than we imagined. Ug!
Today we figured out how to haul our dinghy onto the davits, pictured above. That was also quite the challenge, mainly because we have zero experience with such a system. It looks like a simple hauling system, but no, many subtleties. In the pic is one of the davits (a little crane) and at my feet is a hauling bridle to lift the dinghy and keep it level. The bridle is homemade, or should I say boatmade. It works pretty well. I look happy, but that’s only because Shelly told me to smile (grrrrr).
Still not done but should be by tomorrow morning. I’ll post pics of the final system when it is complete.
Progress. We are way closer to having the boat ready to finally leave and start moving down the coast!
Posted in Sailing by Mark with 2 comments.
Navigation Project Part 2
Radar Mast on Good Karma
Well, figuring out how marine electronics are supposed to work and coming up with a good installation layout is proving to be a challenge. Despite having an enormous amount of knowledge of electronics and computers, marine electronics are in their own special world. The things you’d think would be similar, such as a chart plotter and something like an iPad (both can be used as graphic navigation computers), are not at all.
By the way, this post will be quite boring to most so feel free to stop reading if you aren’t interested in this topic.
Also, wiring is a huge challenge. Ok, so you have a radar unit, which is the big round bowl-looking thing in the picture above, that works with the chart plotter. The chart plotter displays a chart (map) of the area and shows your boat location, like Google maps. Separately, the radar overlays on the map non-static items such as weather, boats, etc. Seeing where boats are is invaluable when navigating in fog or at night. For instance, when we sailed in the San Juan islands off Washington state, a fog bank came in rapidly while we were in a busy channel. Out of the gloom we heard a loud ship horn, ran to turn on the radar (an old clunky one) and could see where the ship was. We could then keep clear. So it is fairly important.
Anyway, the point is that the radar data has to get to the chart plotter which is in front of the wheel. To get the data to the chart plotter, you have to run a cable down the inside of the mast, under the cockpit deck and up to the chart plotter. Running these wires is quite the job. You would think a modern system would use wifi or bluetooth. You would think that all modern instruments would be connected this way, it would be far easier to install and maintain and maybe not quite as reliable, probably reliable enough.
Turns out the radar DOES have a wifi channel to the chart plotter BUT… They recommended wiring it up anyway and using the wifi as a “backup.” That actually makes no sense but whatever.
This all started because we wanted to install an AIS system so big ships can “see” us and we can “see” them. A new AIS required a new chart plotter which required a new radar. BUT, our current electronics are quite old and though they still work, they are very dated and it shows. A new system makes everything safer and given the amount of sailing we intend to do, we will need it.
By the way, click here to see a cool video of ship traffic around the world taken from AIS transponders. Lots of traffic out there!
Posted in Electronics and Radios, Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Busy Day
Hey Rocky Mountain Rescue, Do I Pass My RS Test?
A little inside joke there for the few RMR people who read this blog: What is shown is a new hauling system I rigged up today to lift our 90 pound dinghy outboard engine up to mount it on the stern rail. This system gives us a 4-to-1 mechanical advantage. An “RS test” is a grueling technical field test that Rocky Mountain Rescue uses to determine if someone is ready to move up to being in charge of the technical aspects of a mountain rescue mission. Building a hauling system, similar to what is shown above, is a standard part of the test. It is not so common to use these a haul system even in intermediate mountaineering, but in sailing they are one of the most basic systems, used in numerous applications.
On top of that we are beginning a major overhaul of our navigation electronics. We are installing a new chart plotter (kind of like Google Maps for the ocean), a new radar and an automated identification system (AIS). One thing an AIS does is to warn you if you are on a collision course with another vessel. This is important, especially in busy shipping lanes and in the ocean where a cargo ship could easily sneak up on you at night. It also tells other ships what your boat is doing and therefore warns them there may be a collision so that can either contact you or change course.
We struggled to gather all the components of this system (which all work together) and now are going to install them. It’ll probably take a few days but when we are done, we’ll have pretty much all the modern electronics we should need.
Posted in Mountain Rescue, Sailing by Mark with 2 comments.
Back Home
A Frickin Heron!
Back on the Good Karma tonight after being gone for about 9 days. We aren’t completely back to normal as they still have a few maintenance items to finish up over the next few days. At least we can stay on the boat now, it’s back in the water and all the “furniture” is back in place. We had a good tour but got a bit tired of all the restaurant food.
Above is a photo of a heron that visits us every evening. Shelly named him Herman. At night he stands on the edge of the dock at the edge of the dock lights. He stands straight up looking for fish and is at least three feet tall. In the middle of the night he looks like some sort of scary alien just standing there. We’ve been trying to get a night pic of him but he’s very sensitive to motion around him and leaves if he sees us.
Part of our upgrade was an EPA approved composting head (the toilet) that sterilizes waste and allows you to discharge directly into the bay. This is a great advantage as you don’t have to pump out your waste holding tank at the dock service center every few days.
Below is a pic of (a replica of) the America, first boat to win the America’s Cup in 1851. The masts on this replica are actually made of wood, like the original.
Considering an Upgrade…
Posted in Sailing by Mark with 2 comments.
The Big Maintenance Haul-Out
The Name Is Finally Official!
Haven’t posted anything for a while because we were on an extended road trip. Right after Labor Day we had the Good Karma hauled out to complete some maintenance items that our surveyed found when we bought the boat. They weren’t serious items but several of them required that the boat be out of the water. They use what is called a “travel lift” to raise the boat and wheel it to a back location in the boat yard. The boat is lowered on several stands which are surprisingly stable. Boat hauling is a common maintenance operation and many people here store their boats “on the hard” for the winter. For long term storage they actually shrink-wrap the entire boat, which puts a water- and sun-proof coating around the boat while not in use. We plan on being much further south before winter sets in here at Rock Hall.
Since we couldn’t be on the boat while they worked on it here, we decided to do a Civil War battlefield tour, coming next…
The Work Begins…
Posted in Sailing by Mark with comments disabled.
Windy Day
Cloud Bands at Outer Edge of Hurricane Hermine
Lots of wind this day while we were at dock. Blowing here on the outer edge of hurricane Hermine. We didn’t get any rain here though. It wasn’t a hurricane when it got this far north but quite interesting watching the cloud bands flow over. It was deliciously cool starting last night through today. This is what I consider to be perfect weather. I believe it will get warmer again over the next week but in general the temperature has been livable here in Maryland.
It was a good down day after two days of sailing and getting into the pace of our new life. This is Labor Day weekend and the little town of Rock Hall is rocking. Interesting to see how this town transitions from sleepy small colonial town during the week to busy tourist town on the weekends.
By the way, this was apparently one of the favorite stops for George Washington and there are signs all over declaring that George Washington slept here.
Posted in Sailing by Mark with 2 comments.